Military History Photo Friday: El Castillo de San José in Lanzarote, Canary Islands

As I mentioned on Monday, I was on vacation in Lanzarote all last week. Even though I wasn't writing, I was keeping my eye out for interesting blog post material. This week on Black Gate I blogged about the island's Piracy Museum, and next week will see another Lanzarote post as well.

And here's something for this blog, a fort called El Castillo de San José, which guarded the approach to the port of Arrecife. It was built between 1776 and 1779. The whole island is dotted with forts to protect the various harbors from pirates and rival powers such as the British.

A combination double-header outhouse and gun turret. The soldiers were apparently not shy, or just lonely.

This particular fort was actually built in a time of relative peace as a make-work project for the islanders, who were going through tough economic times thanks to a drought and a volcanic eruption that ruined the crops. Thus it earned the name Fortaleza del Hambre (Hunger Fortress).

It now houses a contemporary art museum and a cool restaurant/bar that retains its 1970s decor.

The restaurant gives a fine view of the fishing port.

The original Seventies interior is intact.

Even the stairs to the bathroom are groovy!

Back From Vacation and Back To Work

For the last eight days I've been doing something rare for me--nothing! I went on a vacation to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to see some of my in-laws and the World's Coolest Nephew. This wasn't one of my usual research/writing trips, but an actual vacation where I didn't write for a full eight days, the longest I've gone without writing in I don't know how long. The last time I took an actual vacation was five years ago when I spent a long weekend in Wales.

It was refreshing, and now I'm back in Spain and back to work. Lots more ghostwriting, plus working on the fourth Toxic World post-apocalyptic novel, and another project I'll talk about in a later post. Lanzarote was tons of fun, but it's good to be back!

What have you been up to so far this summer?

Busy Traveling and Writing

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I blogged. I've been really busy this month with a ghostwriting assignment that's got me writing 2,000 words of fiction a day. Add that on top of my regular work and you can see how things are for me at the moment. I've also been traveling. I just spent a wonderful week in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands with my family, meeting two great soon-to-be in-laws. Between swimming and eating, I somehow managed to get my 2,000 words a day in.

And that taught me something. If I can be on vacation and still keep up a decent word count, there's no reason I shouldn't continue that once this assignment is over. Keep an eye out for more productivity from me in the future! I'm almost done with my Apache novel, and after that I'll write book four in the Trench Raiders series, or finish Book Four in my Toxic World series. I'm not sure which order those will come in, but those are the next two in any case.

Tomorrow I'm off to Oxford for my usual summer of researching, writing, and catching up with British friends. I'll try to get back to a more regular blogging schedule in August. What are your summer plans?

This isn't me, this is our waiter who stuffed us silly with seafood.

Travel Tuesday: Flying around Tenerife in the Canary Islands

Wait, who's that in the pilot's seat? Yep, yours truly is flying a plane! More specifically I'm flying a Piper Cherokee Archer II, a small four-seater, around Tenerife.

One of my wife's colleagues, an astronomer named Carlos, is a licensed pilot and loves to fly small planes. Carlos is also a licensed instructor and can fly the big passenger jets too. He's a member of the Real Aeroclub de Tenerife (Royal Flying Club of Tenerife) and offered to take us around the island. When he first said I'd be flying the plane, I made polite laughter at what I thought was a predictable joke. Once we were in the air, however, he handed over the controls to me! I flew for about 45 minutes, making ascents, descents, and simple turns.

Jump the cut for more pics!

Travel Tuesday: Exploring the Canary Islands

This is a Dragon tree, a native species to the Canaries.

 As I mentioned last week, I'm in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. My wife is doing some work with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, one of the best ground-based telescopes in the world. she also works with the Hubble Space Telescope. too bad we couldn't get the funding to go into orbit!

While she's doing smart stuff and the kid is in day camp atop a nearby mountain, I'm here in La Laguna writing. Working vacations are the only kind of vacations writers get. The change of venue has done me good, because Madrid is stifling this time of year. Not that Tenerife is much cooler. Being off the coast of Western Sahara it's part of Africa even if it is owned by Spain and filled with Spanish Colonial architecture.

Seventeenth-century private home, now a museum.

Jump the cut for more photos!

Travel Tuesday: Cheesy Shot of the Canary Islands

Hello from Tenerife in the Canary Islands! I'm here for the next two weeks while my wife works at the local astronomy institute. I'll be doing some writing and exploring. The Canary Islands are volcanic, and Tenerife is basically one big extinct volcano. Should be some good hiking!

The islands are Spain's most distant possession, being off the coast of Western Sahara. It has a sort of Moroccan feel to it even though the architecture is Spanish Colonial or tastelessly modern. The local cuisine uses a lot of different sauces and they absolutely love garlic. This dish is baked cheese, a bit like the Greek saganaki except they don't bring it flaming to your table. The sauces are dill, coriander, and blueberry. They were all good, although the blueberry didn't work with the cheese because it masked the flavor too much. There are also several local wines that we'll be sampling. Look for more pictures soon!